The Burning Cauldron and Working Towards Death

The Burning Cauldron & Working Towards Death:

(Two Essays Told By The Soul)

by

Elias Sassoon

The Burning Cauldron & Working Towards Death: Two Essays

ISBN: 978-1-312-05293-2

Copyright © 2014 by Elias Sassoon

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or, other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage  or retrieval systems, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. This is a work of philosophy. Any resemblance of any of the characters to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

First Printing: June 2014

Dedication

To the discipline of philosophy. It runs through all our lives unseen, but effecting everything. Few can see it or feel its effects, but it’s there tugging at every aspect of our daily existence. Let us remember this the next time we turn our backs on confrontation with the thoughts of those such as Socrates and Aristotle. We owe them everything for explaining everything.

Table of Contents

THE BURNING CAULDRON

Chapter 1 - Beginning

Chapter 2 – Rebellion Under The Sun

Chapter 3 – Obvious Institutions

Chapter 4 – Animal Instincts & Other Primal. Lies

Chapter 5 – Black Like Me

Chapter 6 –Progression Of Myths

Chapter 7 – Veneration Is The Name Of The Game

Chapter 8 – Media Blitzkrieg Into The Soul Of You

WORKING TOWARDS DEATH

Preface: Setting The Scope Of The Un-scopable

Chapter 1 – Family Brutality In The Matter Of Lost

Illusions

Chapter 2 – Death Countering Illusionary Psychosis

Chapter 3 – Growing Up With Father And Bags Of Broken

Dishes

Chapter 4 - Family Irregularities Constipating The Dung

Heap

Chapter 5 - Friendship Gained/Lost In Death Alley

Chapter 6 – Jobs Had/Lost In The Minds Of The Mindless

Chapter 7 – Religious Notes & Other Transient Matters

Chapter 8 – Random Death Thoughts & Other Errata

Chapter 9 – Personal Thoughts On This Person

Epilogue – Concluding With The Father Of The

Conclusion

THE BURNING CAULDRON

Chapter 1 - Beginning

Beginning this book, or, whatever you want to call it. Not sure what a book really is anymore. Not sure what anything is or is supposed to be. Not into judgment anymore, even when it is based on scientific observation. I am the Doubting Thomas of oncoming old age. Cannot believe in anything, as there is contradiction seemingly in everything. This all point to the underside of life, the dark side if you wish to call it that. Everything you cannot see that is working against you, like dust mites floating in wisp of air.

So I cannot positively claim this is a book. Is it a novel, a concoction of thoughts put into human form that wind into an entertaining story of between two hundred to a thousand pages? Cannot even be sure of what a novel is except a cracked mirror held up to the human soul and always found wanting. What is this novel except a portrayal of some outward manifestation of human life? But what of the inner soul, where is that portrayed? Certainly not in Madame Bovary or any of the other assorted manifestations of human psychology. Pointing to something and claiming it is reality is insanity itself. So what is this I am writing, an essay, a string of words that seek to instruct, to lead, to influence? What does that mean? Nonsense to it all. Autobiography, perhaps, the writing about self? But is that not some lie. What self is being portrayed? Always the self for the world and not the true self, the self that is not attached to body and mind. There is no human that has been able to report objectively from the life force that pervades the world. So it’s all a lie.

This writing I’m doing, at least let me attempt to pinpoint its genre. Philosophy, history, sociology? What? The need to define leads us only to confine. Yes, sir, first we, and in this I speak of people, seek to classify for the purpose of removing. The mere idea of classification is akin to elimination. Think of that for a moment or two. What do I know about any of this genre stuff? What I do have knowledge of is what I hear buzzing in my brain at the current moment and then putting the buzzing down in digital format in electronic files that are stored on a medium I don’t understand at all. It’s not so bad either not to understand, though understanding does help slow down the process. But what is understanding anyway. You can spend your life understanding. What does that accomplish? The act of trying to understand is the act of murder, in this case, murdering yourself. We should never try to understand ourselves or the way of the world, that goes against our own existence. What is there to know about men? Little, very, very little.

When I talk of hearing a buzzing in my mind, I’m referring to hearing dialogue between two average people and they are issuing bits of philosophy and political principles and such. Their ideas go floating through this brain of mine and I react. Sometimes there’s rage and I want to put it down on paper as soon as possible and get rid of it. And then there is the idea that I need to capture the thoughts in literary form before they disappear. What’s going on there? Am I attempting to understand the world? God forbid. Then I am committing the grave sin of trying to make sense of it all. Making sense is equivalent to rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic after it met its iceberg. What induces me to attempt such an impossible task? It’s all about ego.

Of course, this is all ego. I say this with a straight face that is backed by a straight heart and a square-peg disposition. Outrage? What do I care about appearances anymore? At my age, it doesn’t matter. I’ve come to realize that how the world and its people view me, isn’t important. Who the hell are they to judge? It’s all passing. You die. I die. Appearances die. Simple. We all know that, yet cling to the inanity of trying to please and setting value by their values. It’s like we all are taught certain things, see these things before our eyes and then react completely the opposite. Common sense, where art thou? 

Seeing my bizarre father dead in the box, by which I mean coffin, all twisted up, shrunken like a stillborn baby, was an eye-opener, yes sir, opened my orbs wide. There he was, laid-out, that weird dude, a bane on everybody’s existence, the accursed fanatical snake spitting venom into the eyes of every beholder, there, in that pine box, that man terminally concerned about what others thought of him into oblivion, there, before me, now on a view, curled up dead in the coffin, soon to decay in the ground. What an awakening. All the time that accursed man wasted on perceptions and pushing perceptions on others, all that time, he spent inciting ignorance and dark clouds. All that time wasted on the underside of life. Why?

The whole human race is like that. It is a race of human Pythagorean Theories, who cherish the passing fancy and the vanishing idea, who clutch on upon the sterile concept and ride it into oblivion. Humans on the individual plane do that too. Watch them embrace the ever-passing job, or, the next great purchase made in the big sales stores of the Western World.  Dumb and dumber to quote a famous movie of the same dumb name. Concentrating on the worthless, leading to worthlessness. Humans treading water in a dry salt lake. Preposterous. What should be their emphasis then? Why not just the basics, like what the next meal will be or what will be their sleeping accommodations, or what they can wear to protect against the natural elements, etc., etc. Life lived on a simple level beyond ideas and concepts. Life lived in the animal state. What’s wrong with that? Nothing despite the propaganda to the contrary.

We built up these elaborate stories about men, myths some call them. That might not be wrong; it might provide some form of entertain if people did not believe in these myths. Not only do they believe in them, they invest their beings in them. What does it make us myth-believers then? Humans as myths who have strayed from their own human path. The real world is not complicated at all. The myth-world, however, is filled with grays and indecipherable complexities that not only are beyond true understanding but also lead to conflict and disillusion. Myth cannot be taken lightly. It is a plague upon humankind.

Chapter 2 – Rebellion Under The Sun

I think about this subject a lot, I mean, about the rebellion game. No, I’m not talking about the French and Russian Revolutions, but about personal, human rebellion. Still don’t comprende, mi amigo? Personal rebellion, the common, spitting on authority in every shape and form it takes in lives that are our own. Yet, this raises an important question, how many of us possess our own lives? Few indeed, if you ask me, the distinguished gentleman searching for a cause and solution to human depravity. The simple truth of the matter is that we are owned by somebody, some institution, lock, stock, and barrel. Whom to blame for this corruptible situation? We, your Honor, or, is it your Highness, we are to blame, we the people that inhabit the continents of the world. We are to blame, we, humans who sell ourselves into bondage at the drop of a  proverbial hat. Sometimes we sell ourselves knowingly, sometimes not. Who buys us? The State, the job, the wife, the husband, the children, the parent, etc., the nation, the society, the civilization. After our purchase, we then become pawns in something greater and thus lose everything in the process. Human freedom is left behind.

Not going along, and thereby finding your own road simply because it’s your own road, not beating the same path simply because others have been there and stamped the road safe and secure, that should be the essence of freedom.